SHAC proposed to improve student advocacy, some are skeptical

by Nicole Elsasser

 

““It’s unfortunate that there’s a very small minority of people that had a very negative attitude because it’s initially shutting down things. We’re not taking dollars away, we’re not trying to shut anything down…so for the people who have a negative attitude right now, my question is, what is negative about this? Is it the fact that we’re changing the name from HRO to SHAC?” Nathan Lachowsky CSA Academic Commissioner

 

When the University of Guelph Central Student Association executives (CSA) presented a proposal for the new Student Help and Advocacy Centre (SHAC) at a Jan. 27 CSA board meeting, some people immediately saw something amiss.

The proposed centre is the brainchild of Nathan Lachowsky, the CSA’s academic  commissioner, as well as Momina Mir, the external commissioner, and suggests combining the Human Rights Office (HRO), Financial Resource Room (FRR) and the Legal Resource Room (LRR).

While the CSA said that some students are celebrating the idea as progressive, other students took issue with what they saw as essentially the elimination of the HRO, seven student jobs reduced into four and the lack of adequate consultation when drafting the proposal.

Lachowsky explained that the idea for SHAC came out of a desire to make advocacy for students more efficient and co-coordinated.

“The real place that this is coming from is increasing the quality of advocacy services available to students and right now we have it spread in between multiple service offices, we have it in multiple physical locations and multiple executive offices,” said Lachowsky. “[Right now] we have poor coordination, poor communication and poor filing between all of [the offices].”

Lachowsky said the big advantages he sees is a partnership between the SHAC and the Legal Aid Clinic of Guelph, which will allow students to get free legal advice through the centre, an increased quality of output, and a coordination of training for the center’s staff and volunteers. As far as Lachowsky and Mir are concerned, the benefits out way the costs.

“It’s unfortunate that there’s a very small minority of people that had a very negative attitude because it’s initially shutting down things,” said Lachowsky. “We’re not taking dollars away, we’re not trying to shut anything down…so for the people who have a negative attitude right now, my question is ‘what is negative about this?’ Is it the fact that we’re changing the name from HRO to SHAC?’”

For Dave Hudson, a former CSA HRO office coordinator, his issue with the SHAC proposal does not come from the aforementioned name change.

“In the current proposal, despite the way in which it assures that human rights will not be lost and that a focus on anti-oppression will not be lost, it seems to be quite lacking in a specific focus on human rights,” said Hudson. “Human rights work, at a student level, already always stands a risk of being marginalized…not everybody thinks it’s important.”

While Hudson is pleased that the CSA executives are discussing and exploring different ways of viewing student advocacy, he feels that SHAC might jeopardize the focus that needs to be placed on the three very different offices, especially the HRO.

“It seems to be very diluted and to bring everything under the banner of a general help and advocacy centre, it loses the larger context of human rights,” said Hudson. “Even though those things are already intertwined with other issues, it still requires someone to have the kind of nuance of understanding all three areas, rather than being able to dedicate their time to [one].”

The official proposal discusses having consulted numerous people in the initial stages but cites “unforeseen human resource complications” when explaining the lack of feedback they were able to get from the HRO. Molly McManus, the current HRO events coordinator, acknowledges the complications but doesn’t see how they could have interfered with anyone from the HRO being consulted on this proposal.

“They did not consult with the Human Rights Office, they also did not consult with anyone that used to work in this office and they did not consult with any former external commissioner who used to supervise this office,” said McManus. “There are quite a few issues we find within this proposal. It doesn’t fit with what the HRO does.”

Lachowsky said he was frustrated that people are unhappy with the proposal or feel they weren’t consulted, saying that the CSA had yet to be approached by anyone with arguments against SHAC.

“The negativity seems to come from the fact that people feel they weren’t consulted,” said Lachowsky. “If you feel like you have a voice in providing input into this proposal, tell us…this is not something we want to polarize, this should be a community effort that everyone is a part of but it’s impossible to incorporate those perspectives if people won’t provide them.”

Overall, Lachowsky and Mir feel that moving to a system for student advocacy like SHAC is not such a radical change. In her research, Mir said she has come across very successful programs similar to SHAC at other student unions and began the proposal with the mindset that the new centre will be what’s in the best interest of students.

According to Hudson, while the effort on behalf of the CSA to improve services for students is commendable, he has his reservations about SHAC specifically.

“I want to emphasize that I applaud [Mir] specifically, and anyone else who’s been involved in bringing this forward…I do think that the conversation is important, it just needs to slow down and include more people.”

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